Time Vacuum (or Productivity Fail) Web Sites

March 18, 2010 7:53 AM

I'm putting together a list of some of my favourite time-vacuum websites. What I mean by that is a website that you can visit and then lose half your day to, by the sheer amount of great stuff to read, watch, play, listen to, learn, etc etc. They could be news pages, or a site where there is always something new to see, or maybe just a database that you can lose hours mining for interesting information. I'm sure we all have stuff like this in our bookmarks, so I'm turning to the hive mind for help to expand my list of really interesting sites.

Here are some of the ones I have so far:

OmniGlot
Ideal Homes
Speed Demos Archive
Knowmore
Wikipedia
Wikia
TVTropes
TED
Online Etmymology Dictionary
Newgrounds
Flickr
Deviant Art
That Guy
Sweet Mac Setups
The Big Picture
Metafilter

posted by oxide to computers & internet (37 answers total)

you might like some of the sites listed here.
posted by gursky at 7:57 AM on March 18, 2010

Kongregate
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:57 AM on March 18, 2010

Look down.
posted by meerkatty at 7:57 AM on March 18, 2010

Posted to metafilter just yesterday: Live concert podcasts
posted by slimepuppy at 8:02 AM on March 18, 2010

I love Lileks.com, especially the Matchbook Museum. Lots of material there if you're into looking at old stuff.
posted by cottonswab at 8:16 AM on March 18, 2010

thesmokinggun.com

landoverbaptist.org

venganza.org
posted by letahl at 8:25 AM on March 18, 2010

Sporcle
Mental Floss
reddit
posted by mrsshotglass at 8:27 AM on March 18, 2010

We take it for granted now. But the Internet Movie Database is a deeper resource of film information than existed anywhere on the planet in 1990.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:45 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

youtube.com/disco
posted by HuronBob at 8:50 AM on March 18, 2010

www.shorpy.com
posted by tss at 8:54 AM on March 18, 2010

I apologize to any who lose their day to this in advance: Google Public Data Explorer.
posted by General Malaise at 9:04 AM on March 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

Dang, hit post before I finished. Arts and Letters Daily for the anti-tl;dr set. There's more interesting stuff to read there every day than any sane person can read in a day.
posted by General Malaise at 9:05 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't know where I'd be without imdb and allmusic.com, although I will have to add that allmusic.com could really use some work on its backend (its database, while never anything but indifferent to user-friendliness, has over the last 6 months or so slid into the realm of really sloppily maintained and error-ridden).
posted by blucevalo at 9:06 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

I would add to Arts & Letters Daily the Bookforum blog Omnivore if you're really into anti-tl;dr.
posted by blucevalo at 9:07 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

I would stay away from the Online Etmymology Dictionary.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:27 AM on March 18, 2010

Jawdle: Games and brain teasers
Flickchart: Rate movies to create a personal best movies list.

Seconding sporcle and reddit.
posted by reenum at 9:30 AM on March 18, 2010

Oh, noes, I was JUST about to start a paper due tomorrow...oh well, here are a few of my time wasters:

Know Your Meme
Living with Anteaters (exactly what it sounds like)
Tastespotting (don't go here if you are in college and can't buy/make yummy food)
Everything is Terrible
Cool Infographics
My Crazy Roommate (not updated anymore, but so worth the read)
My Life is Average (go towards the start, the more recent ones are lame)
ONTD (only place to go for pop culture and celeb news; don't do it for the articles, do it for the comments/memes/gifs)
NOTCOT
Visual Think Map
Information is Beautiful
Better Explained
GOOD
Sociological Images
Diseasome (ogod, I think I'm sick)
Confusing Words
Wordnik
Council on Foreign Relations
Forvo (produces an awesome feeling of contempt because you now know how to pronounce that word correctly)
Dictionary of Victorian London
LOLCat Bible (the only bible I have ever read)

Ok, I have to stop, otherwise you will never do work ever, ever again. I would know, this is only a small fraction of the sites I like looking at. Now off to that paper of mine!
posted by eldvno at 9:30 AM on March 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

This thread.
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 10:13 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

^

I like what you did there. Very self-referential.
posted by oxide at 10:16 AM on March 18, 2010

The delicious awesome tag is my secret stash of awesomeness. Also try peeking at the 'funny' and 'wtf' tags.

Popurls is a great aggregator of trending stuff from across all the interwebs.
posted by mullingitover at 10:17 AM on March 18, 2010

Ffffound! (some images possibly NSFW)
posted by sharkfu at 10:38 AM on March 18, 2010

Encyclopedia Dramatica (“In lulz we trust.”)
posted by kmennie at 10:47 AM on March 18, 2010

I second ED, but I am a tasteless student. :P I also suggest cracked.com, a hilarious and irreverent site that is actually genuinely informative, which is more than ED can claim.

Also, sexisnottheenemy.tumblr.com is a beautiful collection of very-sex-positive photographs and text posts. It's a truly awesome thing.
posted by opossumnus at 11:21 AM on March 18, 2010

bash.org
Post Secret
Texts From Last Night
posted by mysterpigg at 11:56 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

Has anyone mentioned Metafilter yet? oknevermind.
posted by IAmBroom at 12:34 PM on March 18, 2010

Science Daily
Cutting-edge science for the common (possibly science-impaired) curious person.
posted by SamanthaK at 1:03 PM on March 18, 2010

Hey, eldvno! Could you re-post the link to the Sociological Images site? You accidentally (I presume) linked to this thread and I'd really like to see it!

Just so this comment isn't a total waste, I'm going to second Ffffound.com. That site is so filled with awesome images, and it's updated way too quickly to be able to keep up with it all (which is good for time suckage).
posted by a.steele at 2:12 PM on March 18, 2010

Crime Library
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 5:17 PM on March 18, 2010

Not Always Right
Etsy
Moving Images
Urban Dictionary

nthing Mental Floss, Arts & Letters Daily, Know Your Meme, and bash.org (though you must realize 90% of these quotes come from teenage boys, and expect a heaping helping of sexism/racism/otherism),
posted by tzikeh at 5:34 PM on March 18, 2010

Also:
Overheard in New York
Wonder How To - related to:
So You Wanna
I Am Bored

And, I know, it sounds weird, but trust me: Mr. Bento on Flickr. This is nothing more than a Flickr pool of people's Mr. Bento meals, generally accompanied by a list of what the food is (and sometimes recipies). Swear to God, you won't be able to stop clicking.
posted by tzikeh at 6:03 PM on March 18, 2010

Digg BigSpy
posted by benzenedream at 1:29 AM on March 19, 2010

When I have an hour to waste (and only then) I usually point my browser over to Futility Closet. The hour never fails to disappear quickly.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 5:58 AM on March 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, sexisnottheenemy.tumblr.com is a beautiful collection of very-sex-positive photographs and text posts. It's a truly awesome thing.

Thanks for that site! I just lost an hour there...truly great.
posted by cozenedindigo at 7:35 PM on March 19, 2010

MetaFilter. You're here!
VideoSift
Fabio Femino's scifi art collection
Winchell Chung's scifi geekery, the best set of instruction to build your own atomic rocket.
Shorpy, historic photographs.
posted by Harry at 12:45 PM on March 20, 2010

Sociological Images

That is the correct link, jsyk.
posted by eldvno at 3:21 PM on March 20, 2010

I just recently got hooked on Free Rice where I can waste time, learn and ostensibly feed people hungrier than I am.
posted by iurodivii at 2:36 PM on March 25, 2010

Productive things to do while avoiding real work
posted by MechEng at 9:17 AM on April 13, 2010 [1 favorite]